App Store Keyword Field: Counting Rules That Matter

Updated September 8, 2026 · by Sardorbek Rakhimov

Apple's App Store search guidance describes a limit of 100 characters total for keywords, while the App Store Connect field reference specifies up to 100 bytes. Those measures are equivalent for basic ASCII text but should not be treated as interchangeable for every writing system. Use the live App Store Connect validator as the final authority for a localized value.

What App Store search actually indexes

Apple says results consider text relevance — matches in the app title, subtitle, keywords, and primary category — plus user behavior such as downloads, ratings, and reviews. Apple also says the primary and optional secondary categories are indexed. See its current explanation of ranking factors and categories. Apple does not disclose the weighting or a complete ranking formula, so adding the field limits together is not a reliable estimate of ranking strength. What Apple does state is that you should not repeat words from the app name, subtitle, or category in the keyword field.

The counting rules

Apple says to separate terms with commas and no spaces after the commas. Its example is Property,House,Real Estate.
Spaces can separate words inside a keyword phrase, as in Real Estate.
Check the complete value in App Store Connect. Apple's public search guide uses a character limit, while its field reference uses a byte limit; non-ASCII text can therefore require extra care.

Worked counts: use the unit that is actually being limited

These are reproducible, illustrative strings—not recommendations for a real app. For the ASCII string pomodoro,study,habit,calendar,reminder,tasks,goals,notes, the count is 56 Unicode code points and 56 UTF-8 bytes. ASCII uses one UTF-8 byte per code point, so the two numbers match here.

For café,日記,天気, the count is 10 Unicode code points and 19 UTF-8 bytes. A code point is not necessarily what a reader sees as one character, and neither is necessarily one byte: the composed é is 1 code point and 2 UTF-8 bytes, while the visually similar decomposed é is 2 code points and 3 UTF-8 bytes. State which unit you counted; a code-point count is not a count of user-perceived characters. Because Apple's public pages use both “characters” and “bytes,” validate the final localized text in App Store Connect before submission.

What silently wastes characters

Apple's keyword guidance explicitly recommends avoiding:

Words already in your name, subtitle, or category.
Plurals of words you already have — Apple treats examples such as "climb" and "climbs" as duplicates.
Generic terms like "app" or "game", and filler words like "the" or "to".
Special characters such as # or @, unless they are genuinely part of your brand.
Unauthorized trademarks, celebrity names, competitor app names, irrelevant terms, and objectionable terms. Apple says improper keyword use is a common reason for rejection.

ShipZen's editorial takeaway is to use the field for relevant information not already present elsewhere. For example, an app whose name already contains "Focus Timer" should test additional, accurate terms its audience may use instead of repeating "focus" and "timer." Example terms are hypotheses, not guaranteed ranking improvements.

Illustrative before/after: for a hypothetical app titled Focus Timer with the subtitle Plan your day, the 43-character ASCII string focus,timer,productivity,app,planner,timers repeats title words, adds a plural Apple flags as duplicative, and includes generic filler. A more purposeful 56-character ASCII candidate is pomodoro,study,habit,calendar,reminder,tasks,goals,notes, but it is only a starting hypothesis: keep terms only if they accurately describe that hypothetical product, then validate the finished value in App Store Connect. Neither string promises a ranking result.

Building the set: ShipZen's editorial workflow

The workflow below is practical advice, not an Apple submission rule:

Collect plausible queries from App Store search suggestions, user research, reviews, and support language.
Deduplicate against the name, subtitle, and category, following Apple's explicit guidance.
Prefer accurate, specific terms. Apple advises describing features and functionality specifically and notes the trade-off between popular competitive terms and less common terms.
Use remaining capacity for relevant terms only. Do not add unrelated words merely to reach the limit; Apple explicitly prohibits irrelevant terms.

How localization changes keyword reach

Keywords are localizable, but added locales do not create one globally cumulative pool. Apple says users can search with localized keywords in countries or regions where the App Store supports that language, while the language shown can vary with the storefront, device settings, added localizations, and primary language. See Apple's localization and search example and the companion ShipZen localization guide. ShipZen's recommendation is to research queries for the audience served by each locale rather than translating a keyword list mechanically.

An English keyword string in a French localization may still match some English queries, but it may be poorly aligned with users searching in French. Validate with audience data.
Keywords are version-level metadata and are editable only when the relevant app status permits it. Promotional text is different: Apple lets you update it without submitting a new version.

Auditing keywords across every locale

The failure mode is rarely one bad field — it's drift across ten locales: a term duplicated between the en-US title and keywords, plurals in de-DE, a fr-FR string that is 40 characters short. Checking that by hand means opening every locale page in App Store Connect one at a time. ShipZen's keyword optimizer runs the audit across all locales at once: title and subtitle overlap, duplicates, same-language waste, and under-filled fields, with cleaner keyword sets you can review and apply, each change staged behind a diff before anything is written to Apple. The scanner and editor are free; applying a whole keyword set across locales in one batch is a Pro feature.

Sources and verification

Verified September 8, 2026 against Apple's current App Store search guidance, product-page guidance, field reference, and localization instructions. Apple links support the documented rules and limits; examples and workflow recommendations above are ShipZen editorial guidance. Read how ShipZen verifies its guides and how ShipZen handles App Store Connect access.

Make the next listing update less work. Edit across locales and review changes before saving.

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